I always hated the test review day. It was almost as bad as the day we went over the test after we had taken it.
Now, as a teacher, I don’t know what to do. Clearly it seems fair to give the students time to ask me questions about the problems they did to study, to [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Test Review
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged motivation, review on January 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Active Reading
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged reading, science, textbook on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Talking with my best friend, I have realized that I need to do some reading with my students. The textbook we have is quite good, and I would like to be able to have them read it and get something out of it.
Besides, how would I feel if I sent honors students off to a [...]
Warm-up Problems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, math, problem, warm-up on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have been using these with great success. I just use problems from the back of the book, so they are nearly always math problems. My main goal at the beginning was just to occupy them with something chemistry related while I took attendance, etc, but I have found them useful in other ways. I [...]
Processing
Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today was sort of a slow day, material wise. I didn’t present much. We practiced math problems that combined stoichiometry and gas laws. I hope that it was a good processing day =). Tomorrow I lose about half of my first period class (which is the slow class anyway) to an honors breakfast, so I [...]
HOT: evaluation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evaluation, group work, higher order thinking on January 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
HOT = Higher Order Thinking.
Today we did something that I came up with that proved to be very successful. Back when they did their drawings of what happens to a balloon at three different temperatures. I picked out some interesting ones that had common misconceptions or mistakes, and some really good examples. I made copies [...]
The no good, awful, very bad day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bad day on January 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I didn’t have time to journal.
I got to school and found that my photocopies were not made, despite the fact I requested them 24 hours earlier. Now, let me say that I LOVE the fact that there is a science assistant, and that she makes my photocopies. This was an amazing, earth-shattering discovery that [...]
My school, part 1: the Stats
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged school characteristics on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am trying to maintain a certain level of anonymity, so I am purposely not giving the website of my school, or my exact location.
I am teaching at an inner city school in a small city. The city is in a rough period, is very segregated, and has some neighborhoods that rival much, much, bigger [...]
Bell Jar Vacuums
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Boyle's Law, collaboration, hands-on, vacuum on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Bell jar vacuums are useful. We do not have a big one, sadly, so I cannot do a demonstration like this one. I really like the marshmallows made to look like eyes. However, we do have a classroom set of mini ones, like these. I was having trouble getting them to work, but after a [...]
I’m working on it…
Posted in Uncategorized on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have had a request for descriptions of my school and students, and I am working on it. I need to get a little farther ahead in planning. I will also post thoughts on my teacher preparation and graduate program.
Semester Goals
Posted in purpose, tagged goals on January 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My goals for the semester, as stated on my course syllabus, are to have the students be able to describe phenomena molecularly and mathematically.
Phenomena are the things we observe. Obviously these will be chemistry focused. I hoped that phrasing it that way will help me remember to connect our material to real life.
Otherwise, I am [...]
